It Happened in Real Life, Unscripted

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CreditDominique Attaway

By Vincent M. Mallozzi

Sept. 30, 2017

Alexis Danielle Gregorian and Jay Lavender were married Sept. 30 at Castle Hill Cider, an event space in Charlottesville, Va. Capt. William N. Marshall Sr., the chief deputy sheriff of the Charlottesville Sheriff’s Office, received permission from Virginia to officiate, with Meredith Lavender Wilson, the sister of the groom, taking part.

Ms. Gregorian, 35, is a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles for the fraud section of the United States Department of Justice. She graduated from the University of Virginia, from which she also received a law degree.

She is the daughter of Judy K. Gregorian and Hrach Gregorian of Vienna, Va. The bride’s father is the director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at American University in Washington. Her mother is an associate division director in the Office of Special Education Programs for the Department of Education, also in Washington.

Mr. Lavender, 42, is a writer and producer in Los Angeles, best known for the movies “The Break-Up,” and “The Wedding Ringer.” He graduated from Dartmouth College.

He is the son of Judith K. Lavender and Harold W. Lavender Jr. of Albuquerque, N.M. The groom’s mother is an early childhood development consultant in Albuquerque. His father is the director of business and financial development for ABQid, a business accelerator in Albuquerque which invests in start-up companies.

The couple met through a mutual friend in November 2014, making their first connection by phone. Ms. Gregorian, who was living in New York at the time, and Mr. Lavender, who was still living in Charlottesville but working often in Los Angeles, spent four hours chatting on that first call.

“It was a welcome surprise,” Ms. Gregorian said. “We had mutual friends but you definitely don’t expect to get on the phone with someone for the first time and talk like you’ve known each other for years, and that’s what it felt like.”

During their initial conversation, Mr. Lavender asked Ms. Gregorian what her plans were for that weekend, and she told him that she was visiting her parents, who lived in Washington, and going to a friend’s wedding there that same weekend.

When she asked why he was inquiring about her weekend schedule, Mr. Lavender, who calls himself “a storyteller at heart,” thickened the plot with an unscripted line that left Ms. Gregorian momentarily speechless: “I’d like to fly to D.C. to take you out to dinner,” he recalled saying.

“I just paused,” Ms. Gregorian recalled. “I think I went silent.”

Once able to speak, she accepted his invitation.

“It was kind of funny to have a 39-year-old man pick me up at my parents’ house for a first date,” she said. “But it was a nice throwback.”

He took her out on a Saturday to a restaurant in Washington.

“I fell in love with how intelligent, thoughtful and determined she is,” Mr. Lavender said.

Ms. Gregorian, who described their first date as “a continuation of our four-hour phone call,” said she “fell in love with how sharply observant, friendly, and kind he is.”

“It didn’t feel like it was the first time we had ever broken bread,” she added. “It felt more like, ‘Oh yeah, of course, we should be here together.’ It felt more like our 100th date.”

Many long-distance get-togethers followed, but in July 2016, all of the cross-country flying came to an end as Ms. Gregorian landed her job in Los Angeles.

“It was the beginning of a new story,” as Mr. Lavender put it, “one where we were finally comfortable and in the same place establishing everyday rhythms.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page ST16 of the New York edition with the headline: It Happened in Real Life, Unscripted. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe